All-Night Fox

There are (thankfully) few musicians whose output has been as consistently befuddling or exasperating as that of Neil Michael Hagerty. Charting all the way back to his days in Pussy Galore and straight through his chaotic decade-plus tenure as one half of Royal Trux, Hagerty has always stubbornly concealed the brilliant peaks of his unruly, willfully discordant soul, R&B;, and classic rock refractions beneath a maddening amount of dead-end, solipsistic rubbish.

Though Hagerty is too talented to write off completely (during Royal Trux's early-to-mid 90s heyday I would've counted him as one of the most underrated guitar stylists in rock), even the most sympathetic listeners may have grown impatient trying to follow the plot of his oft-rudderless meandering-- particularly in the time since Royal Trux's dissolution. Although the past few years have been among the most productive of Hagerty's career, his work during this period has been scattershot even by his permissive standards, veering incautiously between double-jointed folk, Canned Heat boogie, and half-assed cosmic country without truly excelling at any station.

All of which brings us to All-Night Fox, an album credited to Hagerty's new combo, the Howling Hex. Some may recognize the band name from 2003's little-heard Neil Michael Hagerty & the Howling Hex. All-Night Fox is actually the fourth release issued by this mysterious new combo, although the first three were all released in 2004 as limited edition vinyl-only documents. So this record is, for all practical purposes, the group's debut, and happily it illustrates that Hagerty has again, at long last, decided upon a sound to craft as his own.

Containing eight tracks, All-Night Fox clocks in at just under 40 minutes, a length that many contemporary acts might call an EP. Opening with the spacious, reverb-laden "Now, We're Gonna Sing", the record hits the pavement with all cylinders steaming, as Hagerty's squawking, curve-hugging guitar anticipates every corner, and the group as a whole resembles what might've occurred had Phil Spector ever corralled a teenage Captain Beefheart. The Hex even launches "Cast Aside the False" with an near-direct cop of the "Be My Baby" beat, a tactic you'd have to be crazy to fault anybody for.

Throughout the album, traditional song structures are forsaken for acreage of Hagerty's bleating, harmolodic guitar, neck-snapping male/female vocal tag-teams, and frantic, inscrutable lyrics I couldn't even hope to transcribe. And although it's all delivered with an uncharacteristic degree of focus, one can't help but escape with the belief that All-Night Fox is merely laying the groundwork for a more full-realized colossus to follow, and the hope that Hagerty has come to the same realization as well.